Square kilometers (km²)

The square kilometer is the area of a square one kilometer on each side, one million square meters or 100 hectares, about 0.386 square miles.

Convert square kilometers to any area unit

1 square kilometer = 1,000,000 square meters

Quick facts

Unit
Square kilometer (plural: square kilometers)
Symbol
km²
Measures
Area
System
Metric
Equals
1,000,000 square meters
Definition
The area of a square with 1 km sides: 1,000,000 m² or 100 hectares.
Also written
square kilometre, sq km, km2

1 square kilometer in other units

Square meters1,000,000 m²
Square feet10,763,910.42 ft²
Acres247.1053815 ac
Hectares100 ha
Square miles0.3861021585 mi²
Square centimeters10,000,000,000 cm²
Square yards1,195,990.046 yd²
Square inches1,550,003,100 in²

What is a square kilometer?

The square kilometer is the area of a square one kilometer on each side, one million square meters or 100 hectares, about 0.386 square miles. It is the standard unit for the areas of cities, countries, lakes and forests.

Where the square kilometer sits among area units

The square kilometer is number 101 of 112 on our scale of area units, ordered from smallest to largest.

Bigha1 km² = 747.496 bigha Rai1 km² = 625 ไร่ Acre1 km² = 247.105 ac Hectare1 km² = 100 ha Square kilometerthis unit Square mile1 mi² = 2.58999 km²

What square kilometers are used for

  • Areas of cities, regions and countries
  • Lakes, forests and national parks
  • Wildfires and deforestation

Square kilometers in real life

  • Manhattan is about 59 km²
  • Paris is about 105 km²
  • Belgium is about 30,700 km²
  • Russia, the largest country, is about 17.1 million km²

One square kilometer is about 2 Vatican Cities, or about 50 Manhattan city blocks, or about 50% of Monaco, or about 29% of Central Park.

Top square kilometer conversions

Common amounts of square kilometers

Convert square kilometers to all 111 other units

Metric

US & imperial

East & Southeast Asian

South Asian

European & Middle Eastern

Latin American

Ancient

Scientific

Everyday comparisons

Convert to square kilometers

Frequently asked questions

What is a square kilometer?

The square kilometer is the area of a square one kilometer on each side, one million square meters or 100 hectares, about 0.386 square miles.

How is the square kilometer defined?

The area of a square with 1 km sides: 1,000,000 m² or 100 hectares.

How many square meters are in a square kilometer?

One square kilometer equals 1,000,000 square meters.

How many square feet are in a square kilometer?

One square kilometer equals 10,763,910.42 square feet.

How many acres are in a square kilometer?

One square kilometer equals 247.1053815 acres.